The National Grid is looking for emergency supplies of electricity (Power Shortage Fears, FT September 3).

Apparently, an emergency has come about because of unplanned shutdowns of some coal, gas and nuclear stations. In August, EDF announced the closure of four nuclear power stations and the resultant loss of a combined output of at least 2.3 GW (Nuclear Warning, FT September 5). 

In addition, fires and problems at other key plants have resulted in a further loss in electricity generation capacity

With the National Grid urgently looking for new sources of electricity then, it seems ironic that many new electricity generating projects have recently been scrapped (Windfarm Blow, FT August 1).

Centrica’s project to develop the new 2.2 gigawatt Celtic Array, Europe's largest wind farm, has been closed. 

The £4 billion Atlantic Array which was to have been built off the Devon coast by German energy company RWE has been scrapped. 

Scottish Power pulled out of its Argyll Array project late last year, and a second phase of Kent coast’s London Array windfarm, run by a consortium of companies, has also ended up as more flotsam and jetsam.

The reasons given for the ditching of the developments are many and vary from engineering difficulties to concerns about damage to shark and bird habitats to uncertainties about financial support. 

Judging from the methods used in the past to railroad through difficult schemes, if the energy companies were at all keen to go ahead with those offshore wind projects then all obstacles in their way would be cleared, whether environmental, engineering or financial — with one sole proviso — providing there were returns to be had.

The reasons given for those project closures are not convincing. I think the real reason lies elsewhere. 

Renewable electricity generation, for example wind power, produces electricity more cheaply than conventional generation like coal, oil, gas and nuclear and brings the electricity price down for all forms of generation. 

This is because, once installed, a wind-energy converter requires no fuel, and requires only a small amount of maintenance work. Electricity is produced continually —when the wind blows — at little or no extra marginal cost. 

In contrast, all other forms of electricity generation — nuclear, gas, coal and oil-based power stations — require a constant supply of fuel and the associated labour required to deliver the fuel and to maintain the equipment.   

This can be confirmed to some extent by taking a look at what is happening to electricity prices in Germany.

The price of electricity has dropped there, it is said (FT August 15), because of the excess capacity on the German electricity market, partly caused by the nationwide switch to renewables.   

“Excess” renewables capacity is forcing RWE, as an operator of both renewables and also of conventional power generation, to close its (more expensive) conventional capacity when it has to choose as a result of dropping electricity demand (or lots of excess electricity due to high winds). 

The result is that the electricity price drops at these times when generation of electricity exceeds demand.

This underlines the primary reason for those closures listed above. Renewable generation brings the price of electricity down. Not just down for renewable electricity, but for all electricity, whether generated by nuclear, coal, oil, gas or wind turbines. 

Having more and more renewables generating electricity is not good for companies that have heavily invested in fossil and nuclear. 

If their prices have to drop, so do their profits from huge investments in conventional power.

In Germany (although how long this will last is unclear), the government is currently favouring some renewable generation, while in Britain the government is fully behind conventional fossil and nuclear generation (and of course is also behind the new kid on the block, fracking). This is evidenced by its removal
of subsidies from onshore wind and the recent announcement by the Department of Energy and Climate Change that rival technologies — implying offshore wind and fracking — would now have to compete for funding. 

Wherever in the world we are, if we are to tackle effectively the most serious challenge affecting us regarding energy production — climate change — we should be building and installing more renewable energy facilities like windfarms, not closing projects down.

The reason they are not being built, or not being built fast enough, and why sensible projects are in fact being closed down, is because of the historical investment by the multinational energy companies — the world’s most profitable firms — in oil, gas and nuclear — and their governments’ desire to keep making profits in the same old way from these investments.   

Much more investment should be made in energy storage and in building more electricity links, like the £1billion Western Link which will link Scottish renewable generation to the rest of the Britain.

With more links and more electricity storage, windfarms would not have to be paid to shut down, any excess would simply be used to satisfy demand further afield or would be stored for use later when demand had risen or for when the wind did not blow. 

But this investment is not happening, or is not happening quickly enough and this is because of the profit motive. Renewables can produce clean cheap electricity but its development threatens the profits of the world’s most profitable and powerful companies. 

John Cowsill is the author of Safe Planet – Clean Energy Plus Workers’ Power, which is published on September 26. @johncowsill